Alpine will return to compete in the Hypercar Class of the FIA World Endurance Championship for the 2024 season after a year's break by dropping to LMP2.
Taking advantage of the exemption for the registration of the old Oreca LMP1, the French company had begun to learn about the new category in the two-year period 2021-2022, in view of the advent of the A424 LMDh which we will see debut in a month.
In addition to the data collected in the championship, in recent months there has been a lot of work on the hybrid prototype that Team Signatech will manage on the track, which for the 1812 km of Qatar aims to be reliable first and foremost.
“As you can imagine, the program we have undertaken is really demanding, so the priority is to be ready for Qatar,” said Philippe Sinault, Alpine Team Principal, at the meeting with journalists organized by the WEC attended by Motorsport.com
“We have carried out a lot of tests in Europe, working especially on reliability, but we are new and we don't know how we will be able to go on track with the others, so we will go into the first race very humble considering who we will have in front of us.”
“I think it's the first time in motorsport that so many brands are involved in the same series with the same goal, it's really fantastic. It will be wonderful for everyone, us and endurance fans.”
Mick Schumacher, Alpine
Photo by: Alpine
It was then inevitable to hear from the Frenchman his first impressions of Mick Schumacher, the new face of Alpine and the WEC, ready to face a totally new challenge in his still young career.
“I knew Mick's performance level from what he had done in Formula 3 and Formula 2, but I had never met him. The first time was during the first test, I was able to discover him as a very good driver and a good boy”.
“He is ready to work together with the other drivers on the same car with a good spirit and many qualities to go well.”
“Obviously he is a rookie and will have to learn a lot about endurance, but he has been used in the past to working on very high level programmes, like F1 for example. So he will be ready for Lusail.”
Alpine A424
Photo by: Alpine
Sinault then clarified that for now the A424 LMDh will only be present in the World Championship, while a future commitment in the IMSA SportsCar Championship will have to wait, although the objective is to have the car also involved in the GTP Class of the American championship, as would like the Mother House.
“It's not on the agenda at the moment, we want to focus on the WEC also because we have a lot to do and it will be very demanding.”
“In the future, involvement in IMSA will also be important for Alpine, but for now we will only think about the World Championship.”
#WEC #Alpine #start #humility #believing #Mick #Schumacher
